


Christmas Chains

by GillO



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: F/M, Secret Santa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-12 22:14:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29142801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GillO/pseuds/GillO
Summary: Season 4Buffy thinks Spike is holding back on sharing baubles. Of the gemstone kind. He's not, but how can he convince her?Written for the Elysian Fields 2020 Secret Santa event, as a gift for Annabellee.
Relationships: Spike/Buffy Summers
Kudos: 7





	Christmas Chains

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AnnabelLee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnabelLee/gifts).



It was Christmas Eve. Giles was relaxing with his favourite malt when Buffy arrived. “Oh thank God. You’re really going to take him off my hands?”

“Yes,” she smiled. “Hoping to get a little info, but at the very least give you a decent break.”

“We really do have to work out what to do with him. Neutered he might be, but that doesn’t make him safe.”

“I know, Giles, I really do know. Just trust me, ‘K? At least he’ll be out of your hair and you can have a festive shower or so.”

Her Watcher smiled at her in gratitude. “Just don’t take any risks, Buffy? He’s back over there, chained up as before.” Why did Rupert Giles have a weird sense of déja vu?

Buffy slammed open the bathroom door and stalked inside. 

“Oi! What happened to a bloke’s privacy?”

“You don’t get to have such a thing. That’s what goes with being an evil bloodsucker.” She smiled, though not with her eyes, and yanked him upright using the chain his hands were manacled to. “Spike, what did you do with the rest of the jewelry from where you got the Amara thingy?”

He rolled his eyes. No fair. That was a certified Buffy thing. Then he yawned and slumped back as far as his bonds allowed.

“No idea. Can’t remember.”

“Ow.”

“Do you really think bopping me on the nose will help my memory? Think again, Slayer.”

“Where else should I bop you then?” A pause. “I really said that.”

He flashed her a wolfish grin, just touching his tongue to his teeth. He held her gaze until she broke away.

“You’re a pig, Spike. Now switch that stupid thing off and pay attention or you are going to enjoy yourself very much less than you have been.” She pre-empted him, then, grabbing his remote and firmly pressing the button to kill sound and vision. No stupid vamp was going to pay more attention to a ridiculous soap than to her. His grin turned to a scowl.

“Because sitting in a bath sipping stale blood through a straw is so much fun, right? Why did I ever come near this place?”

“You were terrified for your worthless unlife, if I remember correctly. Something about please help me Slayer, I come to you in seething hatred and desperation, wasn’t it?

The scowl became more sinister. “That was way back in November. I didn’t expect to be sitting in here avoiding the drips at sodding Christmas.”

Buffy matched him stare and grin for stare and scowl. This time he was the first to look away. Pressing her advantage, “What did you think was going to happen? We’d take you to our collective bosoms, yank out your chip and wave you off tenderly on another killing spree? Dream on, vampire.” Seconds later she spotted the opening she’d left. So, inevitably, did her annoying adversary.

“Wouldn’t mind being taken to your bosom. Looks like a nice pair you have there.” There was no mistaking that look. Horrible memories. No, be honest, Buffy. Memories she really wished were horrible, came rushing back. Attack was the only defense.

“Giles! Do you mind me flushing a heap of dust down your drainage system?”

A weary call came from the sitting room. “Don’t drag me into it. This is how you started that dreadful day when I was actually thankful to lose my sight.” 

Buffy gulped down her reaction to That Look. “We are so not going there again.”

“Why not? Tasty little bit you were then.” How _could_ those lips look so sexy. And that tongue. Oh god, that tongue. Attack was the only possible option. 

“Not what you said at the time. Something about needing to get Slayer taste out of your mouth, I seem to remember.” A kilowatt Buffy-glare went with the harsh tone. One second a loving kiss, the next, harsh rejection.

“Yeah. Not so bad in retrospect, though. Compared to sitting here in this bloody bathtub.”

“You’ve said that three times now. Why don’t you quit with the whinage?”

Spike laughed. He actually laughed. “That all you’ve got? So much for the legendary quips and imaginative word-coinage.”

“See? You do the “age” ending too!” She didn’t really know how it was possible to say that between gritted teeth, but she’d managed it.

“Yes, but I do it properly, with words that are actually words. What’s your excuse?” That vampire leer was just asking to be wiped off his face. With extreme prejudice. She swallowed. She was, after all, here for a purpose.

“Enough with the witty banter, Spike. Back to the important question. What happened to the rest of the stuff.”

“Told you. Dunno. Grabbed the ring, pulled Harm away from the bling, legged it. End of.” Again with the eye-roll. 

“OK, Mister. Off with those chains.”

“How am I supposed to do that, exactly? What bit of ‘manacled in a bathtub’ don’t you get?”

“What bit of Slayer holding the keys don’t _you_ get?” She advanced, grabbed the links between his wrists, and with a deft turn he was, well, semi-free. “Stand up. Now”

His ankles were still linked by the cold iron, but somehow he struggled to his feet. 

“Out. We’re going for a little walk.”

“Ooh, Christmas stroll in the moonlight? You’re on for it, sweetie.”

Her glare was even more intense now. “Don’t you call me that. I am not your sweetie.”

“OK, pet. What’s the walk for? You wanna find somewhere quiet to get down and dirty?”

“The only dirty I’d ever get with you would be if a freak wind blew your dust right back on me. No. We are going to find somewhere to help you remember.”

She refused to say more as he stood, almost compliant, and she shrugged on a coat, a thick yellowish number with a funnel neck. He walked three steps behind her, head down, until they had descended the stairs from the Giles apartment and were well across the open patch of grass.

“So, where exactly are you taking me and why? Come on, pet, I’m going to be a lot more help if I know what you want from me.”

“Shut up, Spike.”

They trudged down the road and through the gates of a cemetery. “Hey, isn’t this where my old pad was?”

“No. It’s where your new pad is. In here.”

She pulled open a door and shoved him inside. As he staggered she looped the chain from his ankles through a wrought-iron railing and clicked the padlock shut. “Right. Here’s where you get to stay over Christmas. And until you remember where the stash went.”

His eyes widened in actual panic. “Come on, Slayer. Told you I don’t remember. ‘S true, on my life.”

“You’re dead.”

“On my death, then. Still true. I dunno. I really dunno. Bloody Harm stayed when I left. After I got back from LA, whoosh, nothing left. Honest.”

Her stylish shoes were tapping. “Is that _your_ best shot, Spike? If you want supplies of blood any time this century, you’ll have to improve on it.”

She almost felt sorry for him now. That level of panic wasn’t acting. 

“Buffy, please.”

He _never_ used her name. Nope, this evil creature was telling what he thought was the truth. That sucked. A haul of jewelry would have been a good thing to present to Giles and her mother. A few random baubles would have lit up her Christmas tree. But, no.

“OK, I believe you. Stupid Harmony, never doing the right thing in life or in death. I get it.”

Spike gazed at her, eyes impossibly wide open, impossibly blue. “So, you going to leave me here to waste away? Heroin chic not really my preferred look, luv.”

“No, Spike. It’s Christmas. Listen.” In the distance a clock struck midnight. Across the small town chapels’ and churches’ bells rang. The air was filled with the delicate cascades of silver tones.

“So bloody what? When I was a kid, now, Christmas was Christmas. Dickens and trees with real candles – bloody fire hazard they were – and snow on the streets. You don’t get that happening here now, do you?”

Buffy smiled, remembering just a year back. A different world, and she really had moved on now. Really. But this vampire, so unlike the other vampire, had no idea. Nor was he going to be allowed that close, ever.

“No, we don’t do snowy wastes and Olde Englande in Sunnydale. But here’s the deal. You stay here over Christmas and New Years, we’ll find somewhere for you to be properly. There’s a fridge down there” – she gestured to an open trapdoor – “and I got it stocked. The chains will come open once you unlock them. Just stay where you are, OK?”

Delicately she placed a shiny key on a flat surface. Just out of his reach. He’d have to struggle, but she knew he’d manage it. “Do I have your promise?”

“Sod it. Yes, alright, Slayer, you have my word. Believe it or not, I was born a gentleman. I’ll keep it.”

“Thought you would. Don’t make me have to hunt you down with a stake.”

She reached the door, then turned and looked at him. Memories of an engagement were suddenly irresistible. Smiling, she walked back to him. “Oh yes. One more thing. Happy Christmas, Spike.” To his undying astonishment she leant forwards. And kissed him.

She was gone before he could react. He had plenty to do, wrestling himself out of his chains. But he wouldn’t forget that kiss. Friendship, taunting, a sign of peace or what? One day he, and she, would work it out.


End file.
